Anthony Copley
Anthony Copley (1567-1607?) was an Catholic English poet and conspirator. He reproached the Jesuits and their meditations on martyrdom, and loyally praised Queen Elizabeth. He is principally known to posterity for his long allegorical poem in 1596 opposing voluntary death, in parody of Book I of The Faerie Queene, entitled A Fig for Fortune; it has been considered a contribution to the same tradition as Hamlet.Eleanor Prosser, Hamlet and Revenge (1971), p. 236; Google Books. Life Copley was the third son of Sir Thomas Copley. He was left in England when his father went abroad, but in 1582, while a student at Furnival's Inn, he joined his father and mother at Rouen. He stayed there for two years, and was then sent to the English College, Rome for two years, on a pension of ten crowns from Pope Gregory XIII. He then went to the Low Countries, where he obtained a pension of twenty crowns from Farnese, Duke of Parma, and entered the service of Philip II of Spain, in which he remained until shortly before 1590. In 1590 he returned to England without permission, was arrested and put in the Tower of London. He asked for pardon and gave the authorities information on the English Catholic exiles. He lived as a married man at [[Horsham#Roffey|Roffey, Horsham] (then spelt variously including Roughay), and on 22 June 1592, in a letter from Richard Topcliffe to the queen, he is described as a bravo. An object of suspicion to the government, and imprisoned several times during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign, his writings were fervently loyal. On the accession of James I of England, Copley was concerned in the Bye Plot for placing Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. He and the other conspirators were tried and condemned to death; but Copley was pardoned (18 August 1604), having made a confession relating the history of the plot.Printed in extenso in the appendix to vol. iv. of Mark Aloysius Tierney's edition of Charles Dodd's ‘Church History.’ In 1606 (1607?) he was a guest, in the English College, Rome, after which he disappears from view. Writing In 1595 he published ‘Wits, Fittes, and Fancies fronted and entermedled with Presidentes of Honour and Wisdom; also Loves Owle, an idle conceited dialogue between Love and an olde Man,’ London, 1595. The prose portion of this work is a collection of jests, stories, and sayings, mainly taken from a Spanish work, ‘La Floresta Spagnola,’ and was reprinted in 1614 with additions, but without ‘Love's Owle’. This work was followed in 1596 by ‘A Fig for Fortune’, reprinted by the Spenser Society in 1883. It is a poem in six-line stanzas; extracts from it were in Thomas Corser's ‘Collectanea,’ ii. 456–9. At the end of Elizabeth's reign Copley took part in the controversy between the Jesuits and the secular priests, and wrote two pamphlets on the side of the seculars, ‘An Answere to a Letter of a Jesuited Gentleman, by his Cosin, Maister A. C., concerning the Appeale, State, Jesuits,’ 1601. This was followed by ‘Another Letter of Mr. A. C. to his Disjesuited Kinsman concerning the Appeale, State, Jesuits. Also a third Letter of his Apologeticall for himself against the calumnies contained against him in a certain Jesuiticall libell intituled A manifestation of folly and bad spirit,’ 1602; in this he announces ‘my forthcoming Manifestation of the Jesuit's Commonwealth,’ which, however, does not seem to have appeared. Publications Poetry *''A Fig for Fortune. London: Richard Iohnes, 1596; Manchester, UK: C.E. Sims, for the Spenser Society, 1883; New York: B. Franklin, 1967. Non-fiction ''An Answere to a Letter of a Jesuitical Gentleman. London: Felix Kingston, 1601. *''Another Letter to his Dis-Jesuited Kinsman''. London: R. Field, 1602. Collected editions *''Wits Fittes and Fancies; also, Loves owle: An idle conceited dialogue between love and an olde man''. London: Richard Iohnes, 1595. *revised as Wits, Fits, and Fancies; or, A generall and serious collection, of the sententious speeches, answers, iests, and behauiours, of all sortes of estates, from the throane to the cottage. London: Edw. Allde, 1614. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au: Anthony Copley, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 19, 2016. See also *List of British poets References Notes External links ;Poems *Anthony Copley at PoemHunter ("The the Right Honourable Anthonie Browne)" *"A Fig for Fortune" ;About *Anthony Copley (1567-1607ca.) at English Poetry, 1579-1830 * Copley, Anthony Category:1567 births Category:1607 deaths Category:16th-century Roman Catholics Category:17th-century English writers Category:17th-century Roman Catholics Category:Catholic poets Category:16th-century poets Category:English Roman Catholics Category:Parodists Category:People of the Tudor period Category:English poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets